Ant-Man

I didn't really like this one.

On the plus side, it had a nice, personal, heartwarming story of redemption, rather than some grand scale saving of the world/universe.

On the down side, it was no different from any other average blockbuster release.

I have 2 gripes with this movie.

The first was that while it's okay as a blockbuster, this is a Marvel movie. There's quite a lot of expectation and anticipation in Marvel films, so when this one turned out just okay it felt underwhelming. And the plot holes ah... Seriously how could the villain ever believe that the good guy's daughter was on his side?

The second thing is that the cinema I was in hardly laughed during this movie. I don't know why the humour didn't get across to this full-house theatre but I felt really weird being the only one laughing aloud after a while.

So the experience wasn't great. Maybe it was my cinema. My sister enjoyed the movie elsewhere. But yeah, I didn't.

TL;DR 
If you're not watching it for the cameos you will be disappointed.

Bechdel Test: Failed.

No. of films seen this year with:
   White man saving the world - 11
   Non-white/male protagonist - 11

Movie Review: Tomorrowland

Warning: Spoilers

This movie started well. There was enough action and mystery, good guys and bad guys, and a Disney dream of changing the world or finding a better one.

A better world where your wildest dreams are possible. A world of peace and happiness. A place like Tomorrowland.

Okay maybe not this Tomorrowland.

So the female protagonist of this story whose name appears on none of the posters (Britt Robertson) is a kickass, curious and gutsy young lady who comes into possession of a pin that temporarily transports her into Disney's Tomorrowland, a sci-fi futuristic world where people zip around on jet packs and fly into outer space on rockets.

After her magical pin runs out of power she is left to figure out a way to get to this dreamworld, with the help of George Cloony. But beyond that point I think it lost the plot.

First up, the violence was ridiculous. The other female character was going full-on Black Widow mode, leaping on enemies and decapitating them with her bare hands. Yes they were evil cyborgs like Ultron, but we didn't know up to that time, which made the scene of this little girl stabbing and ripping off someone's head really freaky.

And then more robots that look like humans appeared and the movie turned into something not too unlike Terminator. These cyborgs were scary. And speaking of violence, one character (not a robot but we didn't know that until he) gets partially crushed waist-down by a huge piece of architecture landing on him. It's more violent than the Avengers; At least no one died onscreen in the first Avengers (Agent Coulson and Iron Man don't count).

Anyhow, when was the last time some protagonist who travels to another dimension in a spaceship gets told that her world is ending and she must do what she can to save it? When was the last time you heard a debate about whether we should save the current world or fleeing it for a better one? If you ask me... it's like watching Interstellar again. There's even talk of time travel mind you.

And then we have the ending... I thought she was going to save the world. But she dropped the ball. Literally - the bomb was in the ball and she dropped the ball. Oh well. At least the white man is around to save the day, even if he has to lose his 14-year-old looking robot love interest in the process.

George Cloony's character's love interest. Don't ask.

The first thing I said after the credits started to roll was... "How did the scriptwriter manage to get this script past the people at Disney? I mean... when they asked what this movie was going to be about, what did the person say?"

My best guess is that the scriptwriter said this movie is about getting transported to a Disneyland-like place by a magical pin and being inspired to dream dreams like a kid for the rest for your adult life. "Oh and by the way," the scripwriter would say, seeing the look of doubt on the Disney exec's face, "the collector's pins will sell like hot cakes."

And that is how magic happens.

TL;DR 
Disney is either trying too hard or too little.

Bechdel Test: Passed.

No. of films seen this year with:
   White man saving the world - 8 (argh I had such hopes for this one to be below)
   Non-white/male protagonist - 10

Avengers: Age of Ultron

*some spoilers*

It's quite messy

Avengers: Age of Ultron had a plot with as much complexity as one of Shakespeare's plays. And the battle scenes could give me epilepsy (I'm so glad I didn't watch this epic movie in 3D). But I enjoyed it very much (other than the ending).

The film gave a lot of screen time to develop the characters that were in the background in the first movie. Hawkeye in particular became such a relatable character that he's probably my new favourite. The romance between Hulk and Black Widow was interesting at worse but still quite awkward and unconvincing at best.

I'm impressed by how the director gave each hero their moment, and prevented the testosterone trio (Iron Man, Captain and Thor) from dominating and overshadowing the others. The cameos by Vulture, War Machine, and Stan Lee were plenty of fun too.

This movie is really a Marvel reunion. And thought there was a world to save (from themselves), the characters knew how to make fun of themselves in the little moments. The story line is unbelievable to the extent that Hawkeye broke the fourth wall to echo our sentiments: "The city is flying! We're fighting an army of robots! And I have a bow and arrow! None of this makes sense!" In an unfortunate attempt to sum up all the previous 11 Marvel movies and foreshadow the Avengers 3, this movie sacrificed an important element- good storytelling.

What is going on? Explosions probably.

The ridiculously awesome battles compensated for the convoluted plot overdosedwith Easter egg mentions of other Avengers movies. The Hulkbuster battle was epic, as was the final defense of the pylon. But man my eyes hurt.

Brace yourself for some major ranting:

I struggled to get the plot. The conversations were going over my head, as were the American, Russian, Asgardian accents. I got so confused my brain started hurting as much as my eyes. And because the plot was not clear to me, I began to try and figure the movie out. But that is not wise for a movie like this that gets more convoluted when you think about it. For example:

Please explain to be why they didn't take out big Ultron when they had the chance. They attacked him simultaneously with beams of energy and overcame him, but left him damaged but not destroyed? People died because of that mistake.

Why did Ultron locked Black Widow in a cell with a computer, knowing she could always hack the system?

What exactly is Scarlet Witch's power?

And what right do the American Avengers have to attack a base on Russian soil?

Also, why did the Iron Man suit deploy onto Tony Stark when Captain America attacked him, but when Ultron first appeared, Tony had to use a screwdriver to fight?

And I have serious questions about the ending.

How could there be a happily ever after? Tony Stark caused this mess. He levelled a city. Two cities. How come he can just drive away and have a new Avengers base? People died man.

Also, how come the Internet people that handle the missile codes are okay with him walking in and hacking them?

Are these all just setting up the plot for the next movie? Avengers movies should be the sum, not the setting-up of the Marvel movies.

One final thing.

The trailers... You know the first trailer included a scene which was the second last one in the film? Seriously. The smaller climaxes involving the revealing of the new Avenger was also shown in the trailer, taking from the awesomeness of that moment in the movie when it finally arrived. And that was just the first trailer they released.

Marvel released 20 trailers. I don't dare imagine what I would have seen if I had watched them all. The whole movie probably. And the posters had freaking Vision in them. Urgh. Marvel. Stop. I hate you and your spoilers.

TL;DR 
The first Avengers was better.

Bechdel Test: Failed

Click here if you didn't get the reference in the last frame.

No. of films seen this year with:
   White man saving the world - 7
   Non-white/male protagonist - 9 

Cymbeline

I reviewed this for my job and you can read that here so I'll just leave a small comment here.

TL;DR 
It's a word-for-word modern adaptation of a Shakespearian play. You have been warned.

Bechdel Test: Failed

No. of films seen this year with:
   White man saving the world - 6
   Non-white/male protagonist - 9 

Review - Home (DreamWorks)

Warning: Spoilers

This is a movie about an alien named Oh, a misfit village-idiot voiced by Sheldon Cooper (real name Jim Parsons). Oh is part of a cowardly race that peacefully but suddenly colonises Earth to hide from their greatest fear, the planet-eating Galactus Gorg.

The new colonialist rulers forcefully relocate the entire backward ingenuous race (humans) to penal colonies in the deserts of Australia. These camps have a layout that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Burning Man.

Although the alien race took the time to build theme parks with roller coasters in the hopes of keeping the humans in the colonies happy, they fail to understand the importance of familial relations to humans. Their relocation efforts split up Black families, causing much pain and tears. Young Rihanna gets separated from her mother Jennifer Lopez, and the movie sees her making a journey with the help of Oh to find her mom.

Over time, Oh learns that the Blacks humans are not such an inferior race and begins to learn to appreciate their culture, especially how to dance and appreciate Black music.

Eventually the aliens come to understand what it means to care for others, and realise in their cowardice that humans were not the only race to suffer under them. They make peace with the Gorg, the so-called terrorist race whose entire generation of children they had unwittingly stolen the lives of, which was the real reason why the Gorg were after them.

The movie ends happily ever after with the Whites aliens landing on the moon and dancing to black music, the blacks back in their own homes and welcoming some of the White foreign colonialist to visit, and other intergalactic races are coming to the Earth to settle down and/or party (without the consent of the indigenous humans).

Maybe peace in our time is possible. Maybe the West just needs to return ISIS all their children lost in wars waged by the West.

Maybe not.


TL;DR
A children's introduction to White colonialism.

Bechdel Test: Pass. Mother and daughter. No human male characters with speaking roles in this story. Speaking of which, where are all the fathers these days?

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 5
     Non-white/male protagonist - 9

(I'm going to park this film under the first one because Oh saved the world... even though Oh was the one who caused the world to almost be destroyed in the first place.)

Retro Review - Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno

Spoilers

After the success of the first movie, the most successful live-action manga/anime crossover is back for not one but two films in a story arc.

Takeru Sato reprises his role as the wandering samurai and former assassin Kenshin, who has sworn to never kill again at the end of the war, taking up a reverse blade (the sharp edge is on the back to not harm anyone) as a symbol of this oath.

However, one does not simply walk away from their past. As an insurmountable threat to the peace that Kenshin helped fight so hard for begins to show itself in the form of villain Shishio, Kenshin is called upon once again to eliminate the terrorist.

But how can a warrior who has sworn off killing take the life of someone?

This is the moral dilemma that Kenshin wrestles with for most of this movie. While his resolve was strengthened in the first movie to keep to his oath, the bodies of the victims slain by Shishio continue to pile up in this movie, forcing Kenshin to make a difficult decision and go into battle.

Furthermore, in his first duel with one of Shishio's underlings, Kenshin's reverse blade gets broken. This mirrors his coming closer to breaking his oath of not taking a life, because the only blades available that could possibly challenge Shishio are all killing ones.

The film is not an edge-of-your-seat action movie, as one would expect from the first of a two part arc. However the pacing was very well done with adequate climaxes and amazing character development that sets this movie up beautifully for the final instalment.

I can't wait to see the last movie in this trilogy.

TL;DR
Even the greatest heroes cannot do it on their own.

Bechdel Test: Fail. It's all about the lone wondering samurai who is the last hope of the new world.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 4
     Non-white/male protagonist - 9

Retro Review - Starship Troopers

There is no way I can analyse this movie objectively. It is one of my favourite childhood movies and just hearing the theme song gives me goosebumps.

It was even more significant for me because I served in the armed forces in the Guards battalion, the elite infantry force that is dropped directly into combat on transports, much like the Mobile Infantry. Every time we were dropped into battle I would hear that this song being played in my head.

So what is it like for me to watch this movie again after almost 20 years? Well I have 3 comments.

First, this was one of the last films of our time to use actual models and animatronics rather than pure CGI for all the big set pieces, from the carrier ships to even the warrior bugs. Thus this film was a showcase of the best non-computer special effects developed over the years, even though it heralded the end of that great era.

After this movie, the film industry went fully towards the CGI direction, and the resulting films over the next decade had really poor graphics. It took a long time before CGI came anywhere close to being life-like (something that miniature models did not have to struggle with as much) and thus Starship Troopers remained one of the highest quality sci-fi films of the time, and I rank it up there with Jurassic Park in terms of special effect's quality.

Second, oh my goodness the sheer amount of nudity and sex in this movie! There are possibly more topless females in this show than males, which is already a high number considering that these are army guys.

I'm ambivalent about the nudity though. It isn't all used for sexual appeal within the story so I'm not sure if i could say it was fan-service, or they were trying very hard to paint a picture of gender equality. With very little distinction between men and women, both genders went to battle together, shared the same bunk, and even showered together. I don't know if this is very progressive or very sexist, but it sure is very subversive.

Third... the gore. We're talking 300 in an era without green-screen. Stabbing, dismembering, decapitation, you name it. But what surprises me most is that there's a toy range for this movie.

Doesn't that mean this movie was... targeted at kids? Okay I can't really remember what this movie was like 20 years ago, but I'm pretty sure I would not have been allowed into the cinema if there was so much blood and gore (and nipples). So maybe there was a more PG version that was released.

Here's a parody toy advert that is more true to the nature of the movie (and how inappropriate it is for them to have children's toys for it).

But the gore was not unwarranted in this movie either. While some scenes look like they are glorifying the military machine, they are balanced out with other scenes of the horrors of war. When troopers whom you've spent half the movie getting to know suddenly have their bodies mangled by giant bugs (that their guns are ineffective against) on an alien planet, you get a glimpse of the shock and horror of battle in it's unadulterated form. It's crazy gory... but the scary thing is that it's not that unrealistic in its depiction of war. 

Except for how their guns never ran out of ammunition although everyone was firing on full-auto. That's just impossible.

TL;DR
Sex, violence, guns, spaceships and aliens... that are mostly not created by CGI.

Bechdel Test: Failed. But women beat up men in this film.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 4
     Non-white/male protagonist - 8

Review - Ah Boys To Men 3

This sequel is actually a reboot of the original Ah Boys To Men story, with the boys going into the elite Naval Diving Unit instead of Basic Military Training.

It manages to do something that nine out of ten sequels fail to... and that is to outperform the original.

The focus of the story shifts away from the annoying spoilt brat Ken Chow to the more comedic Aloysius, or Wayang King in the first two movies, as he bungles his way through training. He actually does really well, but his outperformance of the rest of the platoon comes at the cost of his relationship with the rest of his batch-mates.

Lobang is back as the resident ah-beng hero and plays a more prominent role in this instalment. A new addition to the cast is Hei Long who represents 2nd generation immigrants to Singapore who have to complete National Service. He is a Hong Kong's answer to Singapore's Ah Beng (or was it our Ah Beng that was a answer to him?) and clashes with Lobang initially and Aloysius later on.

Justin Mission and Tosh return to play instructors in the training school, and boy do they do a brilliant job. These roles are probably the ones both of them will remembered for for the rest of their media careers.

Some parts of this story are a bit over the top, but that is no surprise. Drugs, going AWOL and dramatic families in disarray are familiar elements in many Jack Neo movies, but by and large most of this movie is a believable reflection of army life and gets a stamp of approval from even my Naval Diver friend.

The movie is not a deep one that will make you think a lot about life, but neither is it a purely slapstick one that has no depth to it. It walks a fine line between being too philosophical and being too silly, and does it with enough finesse to be come out highly entertaining.

TL;DR
Singaporean masculinity at its heartlandish finest.

Bechdel Test: It might have passed, but only thanks to product placement and women talking about items sponsoring the movie.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 8

Retro Review - Maleficent

Spoilers

This movie is a long departure from the old Disney films.

For one, it is a retelling of the story of the sleeping beauty from the perspective of the "wicked" witch Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) who cursed her.

For two, the themes are dark, with betrayal as the central theme alongside vengeance. While other Disney movies contain such elements, none of them that I can recall use them to drive the plot. And none of them have ever touched on the issue of rape the way this film did (metaphorically through the cutting off of Maleficent's wings).

Finally, men portrayed in this movie are terrible. Useless at best (the prince) and evil (the treacherous new king) at worst, the men in Maleficent are stereotypical and pretty flat characters that either add no value to the plot or need to be eliminated to save the world.

I see a trend in Disney Princesses lately. Tangled (which I love) showed us that girls can save the guys, just as they are saved by them. Frozen (which I feel more ambiguous about) took it a step further and showed us that princesses don't need the men and can save themselves. Maleficent crossed the line totally and started cursing the men, casting spells on them, driving them insane, and killing them.

Granted, female representation in Disney in general has been as bad as male representation in Maleficent. And I'm aware that there is evil in the hearts of men that is capable of causing great hurt and harm to women as well.

But is the solution to the patriarchy really a matriarchy? Must we swing to the opposite side of the pendulum? Can there never be some fantastic ideal of gender equality at least in children's movies for us to aspire towards?

Your move Disney.

TL;DR
True love is beyond the reach of men.

Bechdel Test: Passed by a wide margin. This movie only has 3 male characters and they are all either heartless or useless.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 7

Retro Review - Gravity

The plot of this film can be summarised into a couple of sentences.


In between each sentence is a lot of space.

But i guess that is the point.


It's just like being up there in space all alone.



Being trapped up there with little hope of return.




Maybe it is reflective of the fear of being buried alive.





Or stuck in a theatre watching a painful movie.






Whatever the case, I think Sandra Bullock did a wonderful job as the astronaut here, and her story was one of inspiring growth and overcoming helplessness and hopelessness.







Oh and it's also a good lesson that Russians always screw up everything and that Chinese are of little help.








TL;DR
The book is better, well... if only there was a book.

Bechdel Test: I'm not sure. Does talking to a female mission control operator over the radio count? Whatever the case, I don't think this movie is male centric (George Clooney doesn't grow as a character), so I'll count it as a pass.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 6

Review - Dragon Blade

Warning: This entire post is a spoiler.

This is a story about Jackie Chan leading his band of blue-armband-wearing brothers in an attempt to establish the first United Nations (Asia). This ancient UN serves to protect international trade lines and prevent western superpowers from establishing trade monopolies.

As expected, the 36 Asian nations are at loggerheads with each other at the start and the United Nations (Asia) had plenty of teething problems, but this is nothing a bit of western foreign aid cannot solve. (Of course the foreign aid comes in the form of technology and expertise from good Europeans who desire nothing from the Asians other than food, water and a cultural exchange event.)

In the end, world peace is established when all the Asian countries unite to throw out the greedy white colonialist from Asia, with the help of the good Europeans who are willing to follow a Chinese leader (who can speak all 36 languages and English although he had never met a westerner before). They live happily ever after in a city with 36 different flags flying from its wall (excluding Korea because they helped the bad westerners).

My only question is this... If this civilization is so ideal, why does the movie ends with this city in ruins?

TL;DR 
It's basically the Chinese answer to The Battle of Five Armies, eagles and all (I'm not kidding). Asians are good only when united, and Westerners are good only when divided.

Bechdel Test: Failed - Jackie Chan shows are all about Jackie Chan.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 5

Retro Review - The Help

FINALLY.

A movie with a non-white, non-male protagonist!

But as expected of all such movies, it's kinda about slavery.

This movie follows the stories of two female house servants "of colour" (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) as they serve white families and help them raise their children in racist Mississippi. Emma Stone plays a young journalist who tries to give them a voice in a time that they are given none by recording their stories for publishing.

Thing are so bad for the blacks that I'm not sure if the white antagonist characters are stereotypically portrayed, or if it was a horrifying reflection of society at the time.

I've seen so few of such movies that I cannot give much of a critique, but I'm left with one terrifying thought and question:

A generation ago, the oppression of the blacks was so complete that people did not think it strange. In fact, the ones on top in society did not even notice they were being absolute racist. Everything they knew, and all that society told them, was that they were in the right.

My question is thus: What are the groups our generation discriminates against without us even realising?

TL;DR
Watch this movie and search your soul.

Bechdel Test: Passed. The male characters in this movie hardly even talk to each other.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 4 (This counts as 2!)

Review - Kingsman

Colin Firth plays a secret service agent in an organization called Kingsman. After the demise of a fellow agent, he helps in the selection of a replacement, while investigating the death and inadvertently saving the world. All this is carried out in the most suave and sophisticated manner characteristic of the James Bond (pre-Daniel Craig) British spy archetype.

- Spoilers ahead - 

It is an age of sequels: Transformers 4, The Hobbit 3, the rebooted Spider-man 2… and soon Avengers 2, The Hunger Games 3 (part 2), Fast and the Furious 7 (oh have mercy)...

Thus to see something a bit more original, something that dares to break the mould, even if it is a reinvention of something that is considered old-fashioned, is refreshing.

In other words, I really enjoyed the Kingsman movie.



Colin Firth does a ridiculously good job as the respected agent Galahad. Although a gentleman going about his day in a formal suit looks almost archaic in modern times, Colin Firth proves that the one thing the world needs now could possibly be such good, albeit kickass, gentlemen.

The action sequences are gruesomely violent, but played more for laughs than cringes. The plot is a bit over the top, no surprise for a spy movie, but the story manages to stay relatable through the proper character development of the new agent designate.

The only issue I have with this movie is how it puts the British gentleman on a pedestal above all the other characters, even if they may say otherwise in the film. The only black character is a villain, as is the only disabled character. All politicians other than the British are corroborators with the criminal mastermind, and all females in this story are damsels in distress, even the other agent designate. The only good men are thus British gentlemen.

Kingsman is a thoroughly entertaining movie that you can enjoy for as long as you do not think too much about it.

TL;DR
Classic James Bond, with all its glory and flaws, for the 21st century.

Bechdel Test: Passed - I can't believe it passed. This movie had 3 pretty kick-ass women, but all of them were damsels in distress who needed saving by the hero. This movie only passed this test because the hero told one girl to call his mom to warn her about the end of the world. This case probably highlights the limitation of the Bechdel Test.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 3
     Non-white/male protagonist - 2

Retro Review - Top Secret

Top Secret is an old-school spy movie parody that is difficult to describe because it is something so different from anything I have seen.

Released in 1984 and set in East Germany, the movie follows Val Kilmer's protagonist, the first American Rock&Roll star to ever enter the country. He is invited to perform at an international cultural event, which is of course a Communist evil ploy to distract the world form an attack on the NATO submarine fleet. It's a ridiculously funny plot, although it is not that different from what we are seeing today in the movies.

The movie is absurd, almost like a Monty Python film, but the difference being that Top Secret does not let the absurdity get in the way of the plot. The overall film has a much more cohesive flow to it than the Monty Python movies that lack any form of boundaries.

One of the ways in which this movie managed to pull off jokes without going off on a tangent was to use "visual puns" or optical illusions to make a humourous point while the characters had a serious conversation. This is probably the greatest contributions this film made to the industry and I wonder why we do not see as much of such things now.

I really don't want to write too much about this movie for fear of spoiling it. I've already gone on too much of an overly-excited rant to too many friends already.

Go watch this film.

TL;DR
The funniest movie I have seen.

Bechdel Test: Failed - There's only one woman in this movie.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 2
     Non-white/male protagonist - 2

Review - I

Disclaimer: I find it really difficult to review a movie in a foreign language without blurring the lines between a critique of the film and the critique of an entire culture. I thus need to make clear that this post is an attempt by an ignorant Chinese boy in trying make sense of an Indian Tamil movie. I run the risk of being culturally insensitive, and i apologise in advance and am open to correction.

The name of the show is I, and while I as a letter is supposed to stand for a lot of words that appear throughout the movie, to me, I is Intense.

I've seen some mind-blowing movies, some even bordering ridiculousness, but this film goes so far down the rabbit-hole that it becomes something else altogether, and that something is a visual spectacle.

Take for example one of their musical numbers in the middle of the movie that contributes nothing to the movie's plot. They constructed this entire, very elaborate set with amazing costumes and flying wire-work just for a short few minutes of music. On its own it is already an epic music video.

No wonder this movie was among the costliest Indian films of all time.

(Yes I know this is in Hindi, not Tamil, but i could not find the Tamil equivalent of this video. The tune is the same though.)

This movie is loosely about a wronged protagonist seeking vengeance on his enemies. I say loosely because other than covering the plot, this three hour epic seemed to have left nothing out in its making. I can't imagine anything that this movie did not manage to cover:

• Beauty and the beast scene with flying caucasian angels? Check.

• Chinese triad members on BMX bikes having a kung fu standoff with an Indian hero in the middle of rural China? Why not.
• Nokia phones transforming into girls? How about motorcycles transforming into girls? Maybe dumbbells and fish also while you are at it? Check.
• A fight scene at the dressing room of the Mr Tamil Nadu body-building competition involving about a hundred oily, muscular guys in nothing but trunks fighting with the hero using dumb bells? Oh goodness why.

There are 3 lessons I learnt from this movie:

1. Product placement is most effectively done when the movie is about a model who does endorsements. I don't think I've ever seen so many products advertised not-so-subtly in a movie before.
2. The standards of female beauty in India seem to have reached a level of fairness that Indian actresses can no longer attain. Yes, that leading lady in the video above is a real-life English beauty queen acting as an Indian supermodel.
3. Karma. It is perfectly okay to set your enemies alight, unleash bees on them, poison their beauty products so they grow hair all over, electrocute them until their skin burns off, sever their arm, and inject them with a virus causing elephantiasis... as long as they are evil. Cuz evil people have it coming right?

I am honestly a bit disturbed by that last idea, even though it was played for laughs, because the flip side of karma is victim blaming; If bad things happen to someone, this person must have done something evil before.

TL;DR 
I can't summarise this show but I felt real life was very mundane after seeing something as grandiose as this.

Bechdel Test: Failed - Three hours with only one girl in this whole film. Oh wait there's her mom too and they were talking about... oh... arranged marriages.

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 1
     Non-white/male protagonist - 2

Retro Review - Mulan

After being recommended this movie by a close friend for the hundredth time, i finally got a chance to watch it, and really am quite impressed.

For a Disney movie, this show is peculiar in that it does not have much of a love story. In fact, there isn't even a princess in the whole movie. With the "damsel" in distress being the male emperor who needs Mulan to save him, this is probably the most subversive of all Disney movies in terms of gender norms (Frozen had girl saving girl, so that was only a partial reversal) to date. I'm saying this as a good thing.

I am also quite impressed at how they managed to make this entire movie without anyone being killed outright on screen. While this is no surprise for a Disney children's movie, it is still a war movie, and i salute the team working on this for being so creative in getting around this challenge.

With no man to worry about, this show allotted a whole lot of time for character development, which was an area this movie did shine in. Mulan had big shoes to fill, and her growth in physical prowess and maturity is a strong image of women's empowerment.

My only gripe with this show was on the issue of race. The Chinese protagonist speaks with an American accent, and the sidekick Oriental dragon (with a Chinese name) speaks with an African American accent. Why must the lead character sound white and the supporting character sound black?

Also, some of the imagery is foreign to me (even though i'm ethnically Chinese). For example, putting a helmet on a sword to represent a fallen warrior is something i've only seen in western war movies.

I guess you can't have everything. Great at challenging gender stereotypes, but same old, same old for issues of ethnicity.

TL;DR
An impressive, feel-good, girl-power movie that I have less problems with than Frozen. I recommend watching the Mandarin dub of this instead of the English one however.

Bechdel Test: Failed - All the women talk about to each other about is marriage. But i have a feeling feminists are not going to complain about this movie,

No. of films seen this year with:
     White man saving the world - 1
     Non-white/male protagonist - 1 (I can't say it's not white, so this counts only once.)

Review - The Theory of Everything

(Spoilers are blanked out. Highlight to read.)

This movie about the life of Stephen Hawkings made me feel uncomfortable. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Even when he was young and able to speak and function normally, the young Stephen Hawking was still such a socially awkward character. Socially awkward people make me feel uneasy in real life, and having to watch one fumble through the dating process with a wonderful girl in so much detail was a bit painful.

2. The movie was based on a book published by his wife. It is a biographical account of people who are still currently alive, and that made it particularly uncomfortable when the dirty laundry started to get aired. I don't think I can look at Stephen Hawking and his family in the same way again.

3. Stephen Hawking's theories reflect his life's philosophy - that there are no boundaries. While this was inspiring when you see how he overcame the odds with his disability, it becomes uncomfortable when the boundaries around his marriage relationship begin to bend and break. Some members of the audience in my theatre could not help laughing at how warped this supposed love story had become towards the end.

While the acting in this film was superb, the movie failed to properly explore issues like the tension between science and religion beyond a superficial level. I feel uncomfortable even writing this film critique because it's critiquing not just a movie, but also a living person's life.


TL;DR 
Pushing the boundaries in science is inspiring, but pushing the boundaries in marriage is not.

Bechdel Test: Passed - mother spoke to daughter about joining the choir.

No. of films seen this year with:
White man saving the world - 1
Non-white/male protagonist - 0

I'm going to make just one crazy resolution for 2015

In an attempt to be slightly more balanced in my thinking about race and gender: I will not watch more movies with white and male protagonist saving the day, than movies with non-white and non-male protagonist.

For example, if i want to watch Jurassic World with Chris Pratt saving the day, i need to balance the whiteness by watching Rurouni Kenshin. And for every Thor/Captain America/Avengers film, I need to watch a Hunger Games or Maleficent to help balance the maleness.

In the unlikely event that there is a movie whose protagonist is both non-white and female, it counts as offsetting 2 white-male movies. At present i cannot think of any such movie, unless the protagonist is like a slave or something really tragic, and not saving the day, thus the unicorn of such a movie gets to have more weight.

Note: This resolution applies to all movies watched, be they on TV, at cinemas, and even on the computer. Please feel free to recommend good movies with female and non-white leads to help me offset everything else. I had originally wanted make a resolution to abstain from any movies with white male protagonists, but then i realised there would be nothing left to watch but teenage and children's movies so...